Telling True Stories
For so many reasons true stories are the hardest kind to tell. Most of these reasons stem from one particular attribute of these stories: they don’t happen in a vacuum.
The Trouble with People
There’s the possibility (even probability) of other participants having an impassioned response to the telling. Some one feels they’ve been painted in a bad light, another feels left out, and still someone else would rather forget the events even occurred. There’s the trouble with perspective and the fact that everyone has one - a different one. The devil’s in the details as they say and everyone sees the details differently. Being nonspecific, changing names, and so forth doesn’t help much either it only begins the guessing game. “Is that one about me?” comes the question. “That one’s about so and so isn’t it?” the next inquiry implies. No one’s sure so everyone’s a potential character.
The Trouble with Context
Even harder than keeping everyone happy is capturing a story’s context. True stories unlike the fictional sort have no real beginning or end. Instead they must be edited for the sake of the reader leaving precious details on the cutting room floor. Like photographs the stories become glimpses of an experience that is too big to be captured.
The Trouble with Intent
On the surface true stories seem so simple: just tell what happened. But in all reality they are much more complex. What should you capture? The way it felt to be there? The actual sequence of events? The things people said or the things you were thinking? Seemingly courteous bedfellows these goals become increasingly autonomous as the words begin forming on the page. You may realize that to help someone feel the tension of a story you have to alternate between what you thought was happening and what was actually happening until you can conclude with an Ah-Ha.
An Ah-Ha that might just be your best friend wasn’t telling you the truth all along. An Ah-Ha that may need a whole lot more context to understand. And there you are with the toughest story of all - the true kind.